The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

A BAHAMIAN man has been charged for attempting to assault immigration officers with a knife in Abaco, according to the Department of Immigration.

The department reported yesterday that the man allegedly assaulted officers as they conducted routine interdiction exercises on the island. He was subsequently arrested and formally charged in the Marsh Harbour Magistrate’s Court, according to immigration officials.

Meanwhile, officials said 48 of the 60 migrants – presumed Haitian – suspected of entering the country illegally last week have been detained and will be brought to New Providence for further processing.

When contacted yesterday, Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell said despite the incident, he was “pleased” with the progress of the department, as well as the co-operation of the Abaco community.

“It appears on the face of it we’ve accomplished what we’ve set out to do,” he said. “It’s an ongoing exercise. I think some people were concerned, they said some people were in hiding, but I think it’s a matter in which you have to be consistent, and I think we’ve demonstrated that we’re doing that so I’m pleased about it.”

Yesterday’s operations marked the second day of “intensive” immigration checks in Abaco by the Department of Immigration.

As it stands, the department is being assisted by the Royal Bahamas Police Force with the Royal Bahamas Defence Force on “standby for support”, following reports that dozens of people, believed to be from Haiti, slipped into the island undetected last week Thursday.

These checks are expected to continue throughout the remainder of this month.

Last week, Mr Mitchell said the government was prepared to go to war against human smugglers and sympathisers in its bid to break a criminal enterprise that has facilitated a relentless “invasion” of illegal immigrants.

At the time, he said, the Department of Immigration had received information that there might have been a landing in Abaco with about 60 people on board who may have melted into the Abaco community.

Mr Mitchell also issued a strong warning last week that the country will not remain idle in the face of illegal immigration trends, suggesting that the high volume of illegal migrants could be a strategy to overwhelm the finite resources of the country.

“This is an invasion in the country,” he said last week. “ . . .You can’t put it past them that they would say if we overwhelm them with numbers, that’s a capricious time for us to act because we know that if we overwhelm them with numbers they may have a capacity problem.

“I want to warn them, don’t try us,” he added. “Don’t try us because we mean to defeat this, we mean to break this and it has to be broken. You can’t have a situation where last year you had 100 people at a time arriving everyday with no status in the country, and the country just sits back and does nothing.”

He added: “I just want to warn them that we mean to put the resources that this state can employ to stop this and to break this, that’s the intention, and if it’s war that they wish, then it’s war they will get.”